Oxford University Lifesaving Club

This year Varsity lifesaving was held on home turf (and pool) on Saturday of fifth week, with Cambridge bringing along two teams to compete. The home team provided three teams, with the C team completed with Verdeep, an old member who obviously couldn’t resist the lures of lifesaving competitions. With Oxford having the advantage of quantity, we were off to a good start. Nick, Simon and Chris set and judged the incidents and the relays, which were interesting to say in the least.

The dry incident took place in the bungalow and replete with casualties, including a head injury, burns, and unconscious baby. The judges presumably had problems lighting the hob for the incident and we wondered if they had created a real gas leak as part of the incident. The Oxford A team’s attention to safety impressed the judges as they evacuated the casualties after smelling gas, although sadly they didn’t gain any extra points for this conscientious act. There was a general consensus that the dry incident could have been much, much worse – especially since in the practice dry incident several days before, to several members were ‘electrocuted’ in a human chain of unconscious casualties leading up to the socket.

The wet incident was imaginatively set in a swimming pool, with unconscious, drowning, injured and locked swimmers – as well as a tango man sneakily placed where the reflection of the orange lifebelt hit the water. The captains entered, many of whom faffed about shouting for help when they should have jumped in and done something (according to one slightly irritated judge). Special praise goes to the injured locked swimmers, whose very regular and very loud screams could be heard from the men’s changing rooms. The rope throw was an embarrassing failure for both teams: no one managed to finish the event! Cambridge A managed to get three in, but were penalised and were tied in first place with Oxford A. Oxford B, Cambridge B and Oxford C tied in third place with penalties for both B teams. But in our defence it was much further away than it normally is!

Relays and the swim and tow ensued, with Oxford C hoping to gain some points by brute force, until it was revealed that the incidents counted for twice the number of points. Despite this, most of the teams did quite well with an obvious difference in speed between the A teams and the rest of the competitors. Oxford C managed to beat both Cambridge B and Oxford B, although the winners – Cambridge A – finished a comfortable minute ahead of them. The medley relay produced the same results, but at least we had the same sized fins as the Tabs this time. Ultimately this placed Cambridge A and Cambridge B at first and second place, followed by the three Oxford teams.

We lost graciously and headed out for the social, where any mistakes made in Varsity were invariably made up for with the excessive amounts of alcohol and curry. Cambridge couldn’t beat us there – after their very tipsy captain celebrated with pennies in the true Oxford way (of course), the whole team were bundled up in their van while the Oxfordians partied into the night with the Baywatch theme tune (no, really) and a bag of white wine hidden down trouser fronts.

Special thanks must go to the judges, casualties and the Tabs who came all theway to Oxford – and to the lifeguards watching us compete to make sure that no one actually drowned…